Close Menu
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI
  • Apps
  • Crypto
  • Security
  • Startups
  • TechCrunch
  • Venture

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

What's Hot

A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

May 10, 2025

Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

May 10, 2025

Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

May 9, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI

    OpenAI seeks to extend human lifespans with the help of longevity startups

    January 17, 2025

    Farewell to the $200 million woolly mammoth and TikTok

    January 17, 2025

    Nord Security founder launches Nexos.ai to help enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production

    January 17, 2025

    Data proves it remains difficult for startups to raise capital, even though VCs invested $75 billion in the fourth quarter

    January 16, 2025

    Apple suspends AI notification summaries for news after generating false alerts

    January 16, 2025
  • Apps

    A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

    May 10, 2025

    Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

    May 9, 2025

    Epic Games and Spotify Test Apple's new app store rules

    May 9, 2025

    X Timeline is not updated for many users

    May 9, 2025

    AppFigures: Apple earned more than $10 billion from its US App Store commission last year

    May 8, 2025
  • Crypto

    Stripe unveils AI Foundation model for payments, revealing a “deeper partnership” with Nvidia

    May 7, 2025

    Movie Pass explores the daily fantasy platform of film buffs

    May 1, 2025

    Speaking on TechCrunch 2025: Application is open

    April 24, 2025

    Revolut, a $45 billion Neobank, recorded a profit of $1 billion in 2024

    April 24, 2025

    The new kids show will come with a crypto wallet when it debuts this fall

    April 18, 2025
  • Security

    Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

    May 10, 2025

    FBI and Dutch police seize and shut down hacked router botnets

    May 9, 2025

    Florida bill calling for encryption backdoors for social media accounts failed

    May 9, 2025

    Korean telephone giant SKT data breaches timeline

    May 8, 2025

    Powerschool paid the hacker ransom, but now the school says it's being forced

    May 8, 2025
  • Startups

    7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

    March 24, 2025

    AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

    March 24, 2025

    20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

    March 22, 2025

    Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

    March 21, 2025

    Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

    March 21, 2025
  • TechCrunch

    OpenSea takes a long-term view with a focus on UX despite NFT sales remaining low

    February 8, 2024

    AI will save software companies' growth dreams

    February 8, 2024

    B2B and B2C are not about who buys, but how you sell

    February 5, 2024

    It's time for venture capital to break away from fast fashion

    February 3, 2024

    a16z's Chris Dixon believes it's time to focus on blockchain use cases rather than speculation

    February 2, 2024
  • Venture

    A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

    May 9, 2025

    One of Elon Musk's longtime VCS is suing his former employer after allegedly fired

    May 8, 2025

    Sequoia leads a $1.5 billion tender offer for sales automation startup clay

    May 8, 2025

    Bosch Ventures is turning attention to North America with a new $270 million fund

    May 8, 2025

    A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

    May 7, 2025
TechBrunchTechBrunch

Employees of failed startups are at particular risk of having their personal data stolen through old Google logins

TechBrunchBy TechBrunchJanuary 19, 20256 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Telegram LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Telegram Email


As if losing your job when the startup you work for goes bankrupt isn't bad enough, security researchers have found that employees of failed startups are especially at risk of having their data stolen. This can range from personal Slack messages to social security numbers and even bank accounts.

The researcher who discovered the issue is Dylan Ailey, co-founder and CEO of Truffle Security, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Ayrey is best known as the creator of the popular open source project TruffleHog. TruffleHog helps you monitor data leaks if bad actors obtain your identity login tools (API keys, passwords, tokens).

Ayrey is also a rising star in the world of bug hunting. At last week's security conference ShmooCon, he spoke about flaws he discovered in Google OAuth, the technology behind the “Sign in with Google” password replacement.

Ayrey gave the talk after reporting the vulnerability to Google and other potentially affected companies, and said he was not allowed to share details since Google does not prohibit telling bug hunters about their findings. is completed. (For example, Google's 10-year-old Project Zero frequently showcases flaws found in products from other major technology companies, such as Microsoft Windows.)

He says that if a malicious hacker buys a defunct domain from a failed startup, they can use that domain to create cloud software that is set up to be accessible to all employees at the company, including internal chat and video apps. I discovered that it is possible to log into . Many of these apps offer company directories and user information pages from which hackers can discover former employees' real emails.

Armed with domains and their emails, hackers can use the “Sign in with Google” option to access the startup's many cloud software apps and often discover more employee emails. There is a gender.

To test the flaws he discovered, Ayrey purchased the failed startup's domain, from which he could log into ChatGPT, Slack, Notion, Zoom, and human resources systems, including Social Security numbers. .

“That's probably the biggest threat,” Iley told TechCrunch. Data from cloud HR systems is “the easiest to monetize, and social security numbers, banking information, and anything else in HR systems is probably the most likely to be stolen.” He said, and Google confirmed that, no data created by employees in old Gmail accounts, Google Docs or Google apps was at risk.

Any failed company that puts a domain up for sale is potential prey, but since startups tend to use Google apps and a lot of cloud software to run their business, startups' employees employees are particularly vulnerable.

Ayrey calculates that tens of thousands of former employees are at risk, as well as millions of SaaS software accounts. This is based on his research, which found that 116,000 website domains are currently for sale from failed technology startups.

Prevention is possible but not perfect

In fact, Google's OAuth configuration includes techniques that prevent the risks outlined by Ayrey when used by SaaS cloud providers. This is called a “sub-identifier” and is a series of numbers that are unique to each Google Account. Employees may have multiple email addresses associated with their work Google Account, but only one account needs to include a sub-identifier.

If configured, when an employee attempts to log in to a cloud software account using OAuth, Google sends both the email address and a sub-identifier to identify the individual. Therefore, even if a malicious hacker were to take control of your domain and recreate your email addresses, they should not be able to recreate these identifiers.

However, Ayrey, who was working with one of the affected SaaS HR providers, found this identifier to be “unreliable.” In other words, HR providers found that a very small percentage (0.04%) of their identifiers changed. This may be statistically close to zero, but for HR providers that handle huge numbers of users every day, this can add up to hundreds of failed logins each week, locking people out of their accounts. That's it. That's why the cloud provider didn't want to use Google's sub-identifiers, Ailey said.

Google objects to sub-identifiers changing. Because this finding came from the HR cloud provider rather than researchers, it was not submitted to Google as part of a bug report. Google has said that if it finds evidence that a sub-identifier is untrustworthy, the company will address it.

Google changes its mind

But Google has also upended just how important this issue is. Initially, Google completely ignored Ayrey's bug, quickly closing the ticket and saying it was a “fraud” issue rather than a bug. Google wasn't completely wrong. This risk arises from hackers taking control of a domain and exploiting email accounts recreated from it. Ayrey expressed no regrets about Google's initial decision, saying it was a data privacy issue where Google's OAuth software worked as intended despite the potential harm to users. I called. “It's not that simple,” he said.

But three months later, shortly after his talk was accepted at ShmooCon, Google changed its mind, reopened the ticket, and paid Ayrey $1,337 in compensation. Something similar happened to him in 2021 when Google reissued him a ticket after he gave a highly popular talk about his findings at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference. Google awarded Ayrey and his bug-finding partner Allison Donovan the third award of its annual Security Researcher Award (and $73,331).

Google has not yet announced a technical fix for this flaw, nor has it announced a timeline for when the fix will occur. It's also not clear whether Google will make any technical changes to address this issue in any way. However, the company has updated its documentation to direct cloud providers to use sub-identifiers. Google is also instructing founders on how companies can properly shut down Google Workspace to avoid problems.

Ultimately, Google says the solution is to allow founders who shut down their companies to gracefully shut down all of their cloud services. “We would like to thank Dylan Ayrey for his assistance in helping us identify the risks posed by customers forgetting to remove third-party SaaS services as part of their refusal to operate them,” the spokesperson said.

As a founder himself, Ayrey understands why many founders haven't been able to reliably disable cloud services. Closing down a company is actually a complex process that takes place during a potentially emotionally distressing time, with many challenges ranging from disposing of employee computers to closing bank accounts to paying taxes. Contains items.

“When a founder has to deal with a company closing, they probably don't have the mental space to think about all the things they have to think about,” Eyley says.



Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

May 10, 2025

FBI and Dutch police seize and shut down hacked router botnets

May 9, 2025

Florida bill calling for encryption backdoors for social media accounts failed

May 9, 2025

Korean telephone giant SKT data breaches timeline

May 8, 2025

Powerschool paid the hacker ransom, but now the school says it's being forced

May 8, 2025

VC Company Insight Partners Review Personal Data Stolen During a January Hack

May 8, 2025

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Reviews
Editors Picks

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025
About Us
About Us

Welcome to Tech Brunch, your go-to destination for cutting-edge insights, news, and analysis in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cryptocurrency, Technology, and Startups. At Tech Brunch, we are passionate about exploring the latest trends, innovations, and developments shaping the future of these dynamic industries.

Our Picks

A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

May 10, 2025

Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

May 10, 2025

Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

May 9, 2025

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

© 2025 TechBrunch. Designed by TechBrunch.
  • Home
  • About Tech Brunch
  • Advertise with Tech Brunch
  • Contact us
  • DMCA Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.